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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850069">Down Below and Up Above and Everything in Between</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustSomeoneWhoLikesToWrite/pseuds/JustSomeoneWhoLikesToWrite'>JustSomeoneWhoLikesToWrite</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Multi, crossposted from tumblr, will update tags as needed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:02:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>782</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850069</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustSomeoneWhoLikesToWrite/pseuds/JustSomeoneWhoLikesToWrite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Short stories/drabbles based around Greek Mythology.</p><p> </p><p>Or a.k.a A bunch of characters studies.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aphrodite/Ares (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore), Hades &amp; Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore), Hades/Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Ares, Lover and Protector of Women</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p>Ares is no stranger to pain.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He was conceived by lies and exploitation, birthed on the day the <em>doru</em> was first forged. His labor was a long and strenuous one, even for a goddess such as Hera, and it had lasted for several days. It had tore up her insides with no respite, left her weak and drained of nearly all of her <em>ichor</em> by the end. And when he was finally out, he cut off his umbilical cord with his teeth.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>(It is said that even mortals were able to hear his mother’s screams during his birth, the sound so distressing that it cultivated discourse among couples, caused pregnancies to sully into stillborns.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>The heavens had trembled and fights had broke out all over Greece, the seeds of chaos planted and waiting to bloom by his hands.)</p>
</div><div>
  <p>And just like the constant interplay of bees and pollen, it became second nature that destruction cannot be without Ares, that Ares cannot be without destruction. He was drawn to the white-hot burn of anger, molded by the sweet corrosion of bitterness. He knew the biting kiss of a fist more intimately then a mother’s embrace, knows what it’s like to hate and to be hated.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>(Pain is more of a father to him than Zeus would ever be.)</p>
</div><div>
  <p>So, when Ares senses the woman kneeling at his altar, he knows she’s in pain. It’s in the way her breath quakes, the way her ribs weakly clatter against each other like fallen <em>drachmas</em> as she bends her body, presses her forehead to the ground. She wears the scent of blood like a perfume.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>But what has Ares standing, has him summoning his helmet and sword, the taste of War already settling on the back of his tongue and throat like thick molasses, is the way she offers him a single flower. Hands raised and caked with soil, the flower’s roots still dirty and plucked of all its petals. When she shifts her knees, her tattered robes part and he can see the dried blood on the inside of her thighs.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“Please,” is all she says through tears and Ares is reminded of his sweet Alkippe all over again.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Bringer of Destruction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p>Her name confuses Hades at first.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Kore and Persephone.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>New and old.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He asks her what it means. She replies, ‘Which one?’. When he asks whether that matters or not, she gets this <em>look</em> on her face, like he’d just said something amusing. Subdued and a little coy, secrets held in the curve of her smile, in the tilt of her jaw. She lets out a little laugh and it sounds like the early-morning song of a goldfinch.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“I suppose not,” she muses, looks up at him from under the dark fan of her lashes and Hades is lost in her gaze, just like he always is; he could spend eternities just like that, tucked away in the corners of her eyes, drowning in the richness of her irises, “Not to someone like you.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“And who might I be?” he retorts with a raised brow, coy himself, swept up in her mirth. His eyes sparkle.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>At that, her smile turns a little sharper, a touch darker. She takes a step closer to him and Hades’s eyelids flutter at her proximity, a bit breathless in her presence. Because in a realm that is dark and cold and death, she is a breath of <em>life</em>, of <em>warmth</em>, all-consuming in its entirety and threatening to swallow Hades whole. She raises her hand to his cheek, runs the tips of her fingers over the swell of his cheekbone and she’s so <em>gentle</em>, touch feather-light like she’s holding something fragile, something <em>precious</em> and Hades shudders from head-to-toe. This close he can smell the scent unique to her, sharp like grass damp with fresh morning-dew, sweet like the heady petals of a honeysuckle.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“<em>Now</em> you are asking the right questions,” she whispers, eyes dancing and teeth showing, just as frustratingly enigmatic as the day she blew towards him like a spring storm, asking to be hidden from Zeus, “Though, not in the right way.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“Then how should I be asking?” Hades whispers back, dares to draw closer, fingers trembling as he gently tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, knuckles brushing against the pink camellias blooming there. A flush crawls up her neck and he sucks in a shaky breath.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“Not ‘who you might be’,” she replies, pressing closer still, till they’re nose to nose, chest to chest, breathing in each other’s air, “But rather, ‘who you might be to <em>me</em>.’ And, who I might be to <em>you</em>.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>And after that, how can he call her anything else but his Queen?</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
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